Our New Swimming Pool

With all of the rain that we've had this week the kids "play pen" (or trampoline hole) has quickly become a swimming pool.

These are pictures from Wednesday morning...

We thought it was full then...  This is how it was when we looked out this morning. 

A FULL swimming pool!!  My kids are determined that they are going to swim in it too...  I told them they'll have to wait until tomorrow when their dad is off work and he can supervise...  I doubt he'll let them do it, but we'll see.

Mila watching the rain...

As much as I love the rain, I'm ready to send my kids out to play...  Rain, Rain, go away, come again some other day.

Our CrAzY Kids

This morning Carter did his own hair for school...

I didn't think he looked very good, but he wouldn't let me fix it...  He said that it looked like Jacob's (a kid in his class.) and that "It's FINE!!!"  I guess at least it's combed...  I just hope his teacher doesn't think that I did it.

These ones really made me laugh... This is Carter's version of a lock box....

We've been looking at a lot of houses lately, so I guess he came up with his own version. Only Carter...

This morning Leah was so funny...  I put her hair in hot curlers for school, and I left them in while she brushed her teeth and got dressed.  The whole time she kept asking if we could take them out now?  I told her that they were fine, just a little bit longer.  Well when I finally took them out she says..."See...Heat damage!" 

Where does she get this stuff?

Then there's Mila... She has been OBSESSED with Elmo lately.  The first words out of her mouth in the morning are "Elmo"...and she goes to bed crying to stay up and watch Elmo.  This is a picture of her morning routine...  She sits there with her cup of ice and watches it while the other kids are getting ready for school.

Needless to say...we go through a lot of ice and annoying Elmo DVD's.  At least I can get some things done now.

Family Hike

Today we went on a family hike to the San Tan Mountains. There were 10 adults and 18 kids all together and we looked a sight... Another hiker even asked us what kind of group we were with and when my sister told him it was just a family he just said, "That's a BIG family!"

Here are some of the kiddos before the hike:

This was our tour guide, my brother-in-law Clayton.

Mila was really upset when we put her in the backpack, but it only took her a few minutes before she was lovin' it.

She was getting to collect walking sticks and rocks just like the big kids.

There were only a few minor setbacks along the way...  Leah tripped on a rock and fell, Kaden was getting blisters from his shoes, so he took them off and walked in his socks, and Carter wandered off the path and got stickers in his shoes.  Not too bad considering how many kids there were.

Jason wore this backpack with Mila the entire hike and about the last fifteen minutes, I told him that I would put it on... I don't know how he did it!!  It was heavy, hot, and it really made your neck and calves hurt.  But he did not complain once!  He just kept telling everyone he was fine.   I bet he's going to be so sore tomorrow...

Leah running in for the big finish...

The whole hike was over 4 miles... up hills and down hills.  Maybe it was a little much for our first hike, but the kids didn't seem to complain much... We just kept telling them that this was going to prepare them for our Disneyland trip.

Maybe next time Clayton will be a little bit easier on us...

It was a Good Purchase

I purchased our trampoline on Craigslist for $30. That was over three years ago!  When we went to the nice man's house to pick it up, he said that they had it for a long time and his kids just don't play on it anymore and he wasn't sure how much longer it would last.  I just purchased a new pad to go on it and my kids have loved it ever since!! 

Well the past couple of weeks every time the kids would jump on it, a spring would come off.  I didn't think it was too bad until one day when I saw Carter crawling into the hole to get underneath it...

That is a pretty big hole!!

I told Jason that I thought it would be a good idea if we got rid of the trampoline before someone really gets hurt, so we took it apart.

This is what it looks like now... 

Carter calls it "The Big Play Pen". We put their outdoor kitchen, table, and all of their play food down there and they've been playing in it for a couple of days now...  It's probably not the safest place to play, but they say that it's better than the trampoline...so I guess it works until we can get another one.

Carter was talking through one of the bars after we took it apart and didn't even know his face looked like this...

We thought it was pretty funny.

And then today was the day that someone got hurt...

Carter fell in the hole.

Jason is outside right now building stairs to get in and out of the "Play Pen".

He's still not done, but so far so good...

Maybe we do need a trampoline sooner than later...

When Life Gives You Lemons...

What do you do with them???

When we were landscaping our backyard we chose lemon and orange trees just because we love the way that they smell... Only one of the trees has really done well, and this is the first year that we've actually gotten any fruit from it.  Now we're wondering what we're going to do with all of them...

Here are some pictures of Mila trying a lemon...but I guess I need to explain the pen first.  Anytime Mila sees a pen, she decides to write all over herself and then proceeds to go around and tell everyone "Ugee" as she points to it.  Tonight she was really proud of her "Ugee" as she came downstairs to show us.

And then she was really upset that Jason washed off her "Ugee"...

So if anyone wants any lemons, or knows what to do with all of them, let us know.

Christmas

We were able to celebrate Christmas with both sides of the family this year. The way Christmas fell on a Friday made it a four day weekend for Jason, so we went to my mom's house for Christmas Eve then drove to Safford on Christmas day after we opened presents at home. 

Christmas Eve at Grandma Welker's:

With 16 grandkids it was a little crazy to say the least...

For Christmas Grandma is taking us all to Disneyland in the Spring, so to tell the kids; she gave each of the girls Minnie Mouse pajamas and each of the boys got a sleep shirt that said...I'm smiling because we're going to Disneyland. They each got their own stuffed Minnie or Mickey Mouse too.

Christmas at home:

Santa brought each of our kids something to ride this year...

Carter got a Razor scooter.

Leah got a new bike.

And Mila got a tricycle. 

They were also very spoiled by mom and dad too...

We had a nice time in Safford.  The kids got to open more presents from Grandma and Papa Nelson.  They even got Zhu Zhu pets which Terry had bought long before they were hard to find.  I'm so mad that I don't have any pictures of them opening their gifts there... Jason got me a new camera for Christmas and my old memory card wouldn't transfer the pictures to my computer, so I lost them all.  (I now have a new memory card, but I'm still trying to figure out how to use my beastie, but awesome camera...)

On Saturday we went up to Mt. Graham to play in the snow.  No more than 30 seconds after the kids got out of the car, Carter and Leah were both crying because their hands were hurting.  (They were throwing snowballs with no gloves...)  They have never been in real snow like that before.  It was like somebody cut off their fingers.  Leah was screaming and kicking, and Carter was rolling on the floor of our van like a fish crying his eyes out.  We told them to put gloves when they got out of the car, but they didn't listen...  After all the chaos died down and they were able to warm up their hands, we were able to play for a while.  Leah and Mila chose to stay in the warm car.

Good times...